Cathy Stepp, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, speaks in her Madison, Wis., office Jan. 13, 2017. Stepp is now in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency region that oversees Illinois and five other states.

Cathy Stepp, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, speaks in her Madison, Wis., office Jan. 13, 2017. Stepp is now in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency region that oversees Illinois and five other states. (M.P. King/Wisconsin State Journal)

Incoming Midwest Environmental Protection Agency chief Cathy Stepp faced a skeptical audience when she addressed her staff in Chicago for the first time earlier this month.

The Trump appointee’s history of rolling back enforcement of antipollution laws, reducing funding for scientific research and scrubbing references to human-caused climate change from government websites during her time in Wisconsin state government had put her new employees on edge.

So Stepp, 54, took the unusual step of drafting her daughter, Hannah, 23, to humanize her by introducing her at an “all hands” meeting of her 200-plus staff.

But Hannah Stepp’s charm offensive, gently roasting her mother as a mom who would do anything for her kids, didn’t necessarily have the intended effect.

“I failed my first driving test,” Hannah told Chicago Inc., repeating a story that she acknowledges she told the packed room of her mother’s staff Jan. 11. “My mom said, ‘You’re not going to fail it again!’ ”

“She put on a disguise of a fake nose and sunglasses and went to the DMV and followed someone taking the driving portion of the test so that she could learn the route, and then we practiced it,” Hannah continued. “I didn’t fail the second time!”

Stepp’s daughter said she took the test when she was 16, about seven years ago, which would place the time of the test to around the time Stepp was appointed to lead the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources by Gov. Scott Walker.

Hannah said she did not know where her mother got the false nose but that she “always has it with her.” The speech went well, Hannah thought.

Not everyone in the room agreed. Though two EPA staffers Inc. spoke with both praised Hannah’s “poise,” they were taken aback by the driving test story.

“It was baffling,” said one staffer who witnessed the speech but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to the media. “For a public official’s daughter to admit that in front of her entire staff? It’s unethical … and then, did she help put someone unsafe on the roads?”

Cathy Stepp, the staffers said, seemed embarrassed by the story. But Hannah told Inc. that her mother had suspected she would tell the story and “just laughed about it.”

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation said it won’t require Hannah to take the test again. It “takes no opinion” on the ethics of following test takers to gain an advantage, which is not against the law, it said.

In a statement issued by her office Friday, Cathy Stepp said: “This was a lovely opportunity for my daughter to help me introduce myself to my new colleagues. She told an exaggerated, humorous story to poke a little fun at me. It surprises me that anyone would take it otherwise.”